WHEEL OF TIME TV series cancelled after three seasons

Amazon has decided not to proceed with a fourth season of its fantasy adaptation, The Wheel of Time. The decision came after significant deliberations at the streamer, as the show's commercial performance had left it right on the edge of being cancelled or renewed.

The Wheel of Time TV series adapts Robert Jordan's immense, 14-volume fantasy series of the same name, published between 1990 and 2013 (with Brandon Sanderson completing the series after Jordan's untimely passing in 2007). The books have sold over 100 million copies and for many years, until the success of Game of Thrones, were the biggest-selling epic fantasy series after only J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth books. The series had been optioned for both television and film several times, by NBC, Universal and Warner Brothers, before Sony Television and Amazon finally got the project across the line.

The show aired its first season in 2021 and subsequent seasons in 2023 and 2025. The show initially attracted mixed reviews from newcomers due to its exposition and lore-heavy approach to storytelling, and from book fans for the large number of changes and compressions from the books, particularly the decision to give one of the characters a wife (who doesn't exist in the books) and immediately killing her to engender sympathy. Despite a strong cast, led by Rosamund Pike as Moiraine, the first season suffered significant production problems resulting from COVID (including one castmember not returning after lockdown and severe limitations on production due to social distancing) and the finale was heavily criticised for not being very clear in its storytelling and an overuse of unconvincing CGI.

The second season saw a marked improvement in critical reception, mainly due to the addition of compelling new actors including Ceara Coveney as Elayne and Natasha O'Keeffe as Lanfear, and a more successful adaptation of the Seanchan storyline from the second novel. Again, a muddled finale attracted criticism.

This year's third season saw a large improvement in the critical reception, particularly the fourth episode which was able to hyper-focus on just a few crucial chapters from the book and delivered them on-screen with skill. The seventh episode was also well-received for concentrating on a single huge battle sequence.

The show's commercial fortunes were more mixed, with Season 1 seeing a very strong performance that dropped off for Season 2. Season 3's performance seemed to be on the level of Season 2's, with a slight dip but then signs of a longer tail developing (the show returned to the Top 10 streaming charts this week, almost two months after the season had concluded). Pre-release commentary suggested that a renewal for Season 4 would be dependent on a marked improvement of the show's Season 2 performance, which did not happen. This is ironic as Amazon apparently considered renewing the show for Seasons 3 and 4 together, but ultimately decided not to proceed.

Even without that, it appears that Amazon were still looking for ways to renew the show. There seems to have been creative affection for the project inhouse at Amazon, and it is a significantly cheaper investment than The Rings of Power, whose second season drop-off in viewers seem to have carried it below Wheel of Time's level, which may spell uncertainty for that show's future after the forthcoming third season (despite an expensive pre-purchasing of the rights to make five seasons). The show also seemed to be a solid performer in several overseas territories, including India (likely thanks to the presence of Indian actress Priyanka Bose in a key role). It appears that Amazon held discussions with Sony on paying a lower licencing fee or reducing the show's budget. However, the show was already seen as a relatively low-budget project shot with fiscal efficiency in custom-built studio facilities in Prague. Lowering the budget further was likely not deemed possible without compromising the show's production value and making it impossible to deliver the massive battles and magical displays from later books.

Sony will also be ruing the cancellation, having paid eight figures to secure the television rights in a 2016 deal with Radar Pictures and iwot (a rebranded Red Eagle Entertainment, who secured the Wheel of Time TV rights in a 2004 deal with Robert Jordan). Sony may shop around the project to other venues but it's very unlikely to find a new home in the current, more fiscally conservative TV environment. Additional Wheel of Time projects including a proposed prequel feature film and video game are in development from iwot, but the cancellation of the TV show is not likely to help their prospects either.

Some may celebrate the end of the TV show as it means a future adaptation can be more faithful to the source material. However, with streamers and studios looking to cut costs and reduce episode counts further in the future, and a faithful Wheel of Time adaptation requiring a much higher number of episodes (at a much greater cost overall), this is an unlikely outcome.

One good piece of news is that the TV show resulted in improved sales of the novels, with more than five million additional copies of the books being shifted since 2021.

WHEEL OF TIME prequel movie trilogy in development

In surprising news, Radar Pictures have put a Wheel of Time prequel movie series into active development. Zack Stentz (Thor, X-Men: First Class) is writing a script based on the Age of Legends, a major formative event in the backstory to the novels. This project is (so far) unaffiliated with Amazon Prime Television's Wheel of Time TV series, based directly on the novels, and expected to debut in a few months.

Red Eagle Entertainment secured the screen rights to The Wheel of Time in 2004, in a deal with novelist Robert Jordan (who passed away in 2007). Red Eagle spent eleven years developing film and TV projects based on the novels with multiple partners, including Warner Brothers and later Chris Morgan (The Fast and the Furious franchise) at Universal Studios, to no avail. In 2014 Red Eagle teamed with the experienced Radar Pictures to develop a television pitch for Sony. This deal was deep in negotiation when Red Eagle's time limitation on the rights expired in 2015; to keep the rights they developed a self-funded short film called The Winter Dragon. This led to a brief legal case, after which Red Eagle and Radar Pictures retained the screen rights to the franchise. In 2016 the TV rights to the novels were sub-licensed to Sony. Sony partnered with Amazon in 2017 to bring the novels to television, with production beginning in 2019. It is this project, led by Rafe Judkins, which is expected to hit the screens in a few months and has just started shooting its second season.

However, Red Eagle and Radar have retained the ability to develop other parts of the franchise. A few years ago this would have been meaningless - the fifteen Wheel of Time novels (the fourteen main books and the New Spring prequel volume) are the main appeal, obviously - but we've seen an explosion of screen projects based on notes, outlines and thin or non-existent source material in recent times. Both Amazon Television's new Lord of the Rings TV series, set in the Second Age of Middle-earth's history, and Warner Brothers' War of the Rohirrim animated film are based on notes and outlines left behind by J.R.R. Tolkien rather than actual novels. HBO's House of the Dragon TV series is based on a couple of chapters in George R.R. Martin's "fake history" of Westeros and Essos, Fire and Blood, rather than a full novel (though they have the benefit of being able to call on Martin for advice), and several other spin-off projects in development are based on even less. Netflix has developed a Witcher animated film and a full prequel mini-series which they've had to create from scratch (though again they've been able to enlist novelist Andrzej Sapkowski as a consultant). Sony and Amazon are probably kicking themselves at not securing the full screen rights to the franchise at an earlier date.

The movie trilogy appears to be adapting the primary backstory event in the history of the novels: the War of the Shadow. The books depict the Age of Legends as a time of peace and prosperity with humanity using the One Power - a highly regimented form of sorcery - to create a utopia of equality and prosperity. However, an experiment into using the Power goes awry, letting a force of profound evil enter the world. Society gradually collapses over the course of a century, leading into a devastating global war which kills billions. Eventually, under the leadership of Lews Therin Telamon, the man nicknamed "The Dragon," humanity is victorious and seals the source of evil away again, but at the moment of triumph the male half of the One Power is corrupted, sending every male channeller (magic-user) insane on the instant, devastating the world in their madness. The female-led Aes Sedai emerge in the aftermath of this chaos to restore order to the world. The events of the Wheel of Time novel series take place some 3,400 years later, by which time humanity has managed to drag itself back to a semi-Renaissance level of technology and development, but the return of the "Dragon Reborn" (Lews Therin's reincarnation) and a renewed War of the Shadow looms large over the world.

Screenwriter Zack Stentz has some reasonable form, co-writing the screenplays to Thor and X-Men: First Class (both in 2011), as well as co-writing Agent Cody Banks and writing Netflix's Rim of the World. He has also written multiple episodes of Andromeda, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fringe, The Flash and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.

So far the project is only in development; Radar will have to find a major studio partner to provide the immense budget such as project would need, and that might only be viable once the TV show debuts and if it is a success.

WHEEL OF TIME TV series picked up by Sony

Sony Television Pictures have confirmed that they are the company who purchased the Wheel of Time TV rights last year and are now actively developing the project for television.

The saga of the Wheel of Time TV rights is long and complex. Suffice to say, a company named Red Eagle Productions attempted to get a film or TV show of The Wheel of Time made for over a decade before their option was due to expire in early 2015. To keep the rights, they self-funded a brief TV pilot based on the prologue to The Eye of the World, the first book in the series, resulting in a legal tussle with the Robert Jordan Estate. Last year we were told this tussle had been resolved and the TV project was moving forwards with an unspecified production partner, now revealed to be Sony.

So far no TV network has picked up the series, but there will likely be keen interest from a number of sources. HBO, I am informed, are not remotely in the running, preferring to develop series of this magnitude in-house and are also not interested in developing internal competition to Game of Thrones and its rumoured, early-in-gestation spin-off series.

The network most likely to show the series is AMC. They have been developing an enviable portfolio of genre programming, spearheaded by the ratings-destroying The Walking Dead, and have previously worked with Sony Television on Preacher, Better Call Saul and, of course, Breaking Bad. They are also rumoured to be the frontrunners to air the Dark Tower TV series (a prequel spin-off from the forthcoming Idris Elba movie), also in development with Sony. The main concern over AMC being involved is that they are infamously frugal, with even the massively popular Walking Dead made on a relative shoestring budget (for its scale) of about $3.2 million per episode. The Wheel of Time would comfortably require $5 million per episode at the start and a lot more later on, which AMC would seem less likely to stump up for. However, AMC likely want their own Game of Thrones-challenging fantasy show and would know that this would come with a much higher price tag.

Starz are also likely a strong candidate. They are more generous with the pursestrings and have likewise worked with Sony Television on their breakout success, Outlander. Showtime are also possible, as Sony has worked with them on Masters of Sex and The Tudors, but are perhaps less likely to stump up the large budget required.

An intriguing possibility is FX. FX and Sony previously worked together on The Shield, Rescue Me and Justified. FX is probably underrated in the TV stakes, but their portfolio of shows is far more impressive than might be first thought: in addition to the above, FX have also produced Sons of Anarchy, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Archer, American Horror Story, Legion, Atlanta, The Americans and Fargo (the latter two both strongly claiming the title of Best Show on TV). FX also showed Red Eagle's self-funded pilot back in 2015. Although that was a self-funded advert with no creative input from FX, FX did pick up a lot of queries about the project and obviously would be aware of the ratings and other feedback.

More tantalising would be a collaboration with an online streaming service. Sony have worked with Amazon on Mad Dogs and The Last Tycoon and with Netflix on The Get Down. Both Amazon and Netflix would likely loosen the pursestrings for The Wheel of Time (Netflix is spending $7 million per episode on Altered Carbon, and that novel is all but obscure compared to WoT) and Sony are likely interested in exploring the streaming space further.

Sony have confirmed that they have already hired the writer and showrunner for the series. Rafe Judkins entered the Hollywood sphere in 2005 as a contestant on Survivor before becoming a writer. He has since worked on The 4400, Chuck, My Own Worst Enemy, Hemlock Grove and Agents of SHIELD. Judkins frequently collaborates with screenwriter Lauren LeFranc, so it may be possible she will also write for the show.

The next step will be finding a network partner and beginning the process of developing scripts and casting. I suspect it will be 2019, at the earliest, before we see The Wheel of Time on TV. But although it will be a while before we see Rand, Loial and Nynaeve's Braid on TV, at least we now have a beginning.

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What news on the WHEEL OF TIME TV series?

Back in April, the Robert Jordan Estate (aka the Bandersnatch Group) confirmed that the TV and films rights issues related to the Wheel of Time novels had been resolved and a studio had optioned the rights, with an announcement anticipated from the studio directly shortly thereafter.

Seven months later, we still haven't received any confirmation of the studio involved or any other information. This is unusual given the significance of the deal. With between 90 and 100 million copies sold, The Wheel of Time is easily the biggest-selling epic fantasy novel series since Lord of the Rings*, giving it a much bigger audience, name value and cachet than the likes of Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Peter Brett's Demon Cycle or other works of fantasy that have been optioned, if not indeed actually put into production (or in the case of Shannara, already filming a second season).

There are several likely reasons for this. There may have been a last-minute legal snarl-up which has put everything on hold. Given the contentious state of the rights, with the Jordan Estate in dispute with Red Eagle Productions (who optioned the screen rights in 2004 on an eleven-year basis), that is quite possible. It's also possible that the studio which has bought the rights has decided to hold back and make a much more substantial, "done deal" announcement with a showrunner confirmation as well. If the option is tentative, that may prevent another studio from trying to outbid them (which after an option is sold is unusual, but not impossible given the brand value of this particular series).

Here's what we know so far:

• A "major studio" has bought the rights.
• They are to make a big announcement at some undetermined point in the future.
• The Estate's legal contentions with Red Eagle have now been satisfactorily resolved, allowing the project to go ahead.
• This will be a TV series. The previously-mooted movie deal is dead in the water.
• Universal previously held the film rights but let them lapse.
• Sony Television held talks with Harriet McDougal (Robert Jordan's widow and chief executor of the Estate) and Red Eagle in 2014 about a possible TV project but it is not known if they are involved in this new deal.

Here's the text of the original announcement from 28 April 2016 in full:

The following is a press statement that has been approved by the studio involved in contract negotiations:

Update: Wanted to share with you exciting news about The Wheel of Time. Legal issues have been resolved. The Wheel of Time will become a cutting edge TV series! I couldn’t be more pleased. Look for the official announcement coming soon from a major studio —Harriet 

And the last official word from the Jordan Estate, made on 9 September:

Sorry, folks, we would love to be able to tell you more about the announcement Harriet made in April, but according to the terms of the contract, we can't say anything more about it. We assume the next statement will come from the studio. We share your frustration.

Here's what is heavily rumoured but not confirmed:

• The deal is allegedly worth "eight figures" (so therefore $10 million minimum).
• Some well-known Wheel of Time fans may be involved in an advisory capacity on the project.
• HBO is not involved in the project whatsoever, already having their epic fantasy TV show (Game of Thrones) and recently confirming that they have started speculative, early work on a spin-off from that show as their next fantasy project.
• Given that the book rights have been purchased, we can assume the TV show will directly adapt the novels and will not be a new story set in the same world, or a prequel or sequel to the books. 
• Given the money apparently involved, this will be a live-action project (an animated series would involve far smaller figures).
• Given the money involved, this would likely either be a cable or streaming (Netflix/Amazon) show. A mainstream network is unlikely to have spent so much money on an option alone.

I have previously speculated on how a Wheel of Time TV series should be adapted and undertaken. The current big debate in the fandom over the TV project is what studio is on board. I think the following options are possible:

• Sony Television previously held discussions with the Estate and Red Eagle. Having deep pockets and a string of recent hit shows (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Blacklist), this makes them a stronger contender for the role. They are also working on The Dark Tower TV series, a spin-off from the new film, which may have given them a taste for fantasy.
• AMC are currently on a roll with shows like The Walking Dead and Preacher. A Wheel of Time TV show would allow them to go head-to-head with Game of Thrones in the fantasy stakes. If Sony are developing the project, AMC (whom they previously partnered with on Breaking Bad) are the most likely contender to air the show.
• Starz have some big-hitting genre shows at the moment, such as Outlander and the forthcoming American Gods. Starz likewise are looking at big fantasy projects and may be the second-most-likely home after AMC on cable.
• Netflix have a lot of original content and are going all-in on it, producing vastly more original content in the next couple of years. A full-scale epic fantasy series, their own Game of Thrones, has to be an attractive prospect. They certainly have the funds to do it and a flexible release schedule, not to mention automatic worldwide distribution.
• Amazon have some very solid original content (such as the excellent Man in the High Castle), but arguably lack a killer app, a must-see show which gets people to sign up in droves. Wheel of Time could provide that. They also have access to sales figures of the Wheel of Time novels since 1998 and a much greater pre-built awareness of the franchise. I would rank Amazon as a more likely streaming possibility than Netflix.

I would comfortably rule out the following options:

• HBO already have Game of Thrones and Westworld as their mega-budget shows, and they are interested in a Game of Thrones spin-off show as their next fantasy project. According to rumour, HBO are highly unlikely to be interested in Wheel of Time.
• SyFy has spent big bucks recently developing The Expanse, The Magicians, Dark Matter and Killjoys. It is unlikely they have the resources to also buy and develop Wheel of Time.
• The CW has some additional critical kudos recently with The 100, but they have severe budget restrictions which makes them highly unlikely to be able to afford Wheel of Time, at all.

Hopefully, we won't have to wait too much longer until we can get some reliable information on what's going on.



* If you assume that Harry Potter isn't epic fantasy, as some do. Also, A Song of Ice and Fire has sold c. 70 million copies and is bearing down on Wheel of Time like a freight train, and already has far more sales-per-book (and thus overall readers) than WoT.

The Wheel of Television: Parts 3 and 4

Following the news that a Wheel of Time TV series is now officially in development with a major studio, here are the third and fourth parts of my blog series The Wheel of Television: Bringing The Wheel of Time to the Screen. It's worth checking the original posts for the interesting commentary from readers: Part 3 and Part 4.


Part 3: Shaping the Story
Originally published: 25 March 2012

 In the first two parts of this article series, I argued that the current plans by Red Eagle Entertainment and Universal to turn The Wheel of Time into a series of movies were impractical and unrealistic, and that adapting the books into an ongoing television series was more logical. This especially makes more sense in the wake of the success of fantasy TV projects such as Sky's Discworld TV movies and of course HBO's Game of Thrones. I concluded that getting the series made by one of the three big remaining cable channels (Starz, AMC or Showtime) was essential to give the project the right combination of high production values and a decent amount of time to adapt the complex storyline.

Story into Seasons
In the second article I suggested that it would be possible to adapt The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt (the first two books in the series) into one 12-episode television season. On paid cable, lacking advertisement breaks, this mean just under six hours to adapt each book to the screen (or three times as much time as a possible film adaptation). Whilst tight, this would be doable without too many storylines or characters cut. Later seasons could be more problematic (particularly adapting the 1,900 pages of the fifth and sixth books, The Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos, into just twelve hours) though the hope is that the series would be such a success that later seasons could expand to maybe 16 episodes each (as AMC has recently done with the third season of The Walking Dead).

At the same time, the later books in the series - particularly the eighth through eleventh - have some pacing problems and issues that the TV adaptation would do well to avoid by compressing the more stationary parts of the story into a shorter space of time, and perhaps moving things around.

Overall, I envisage the following structure as being potentially successful (note: SPOILERS for people who have not read the books):

Season 1: The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt
This season introduces the principal storylines and characters. Thematically it is Rand's story of self-discovery as he uncovers the truth of his birth and his destiny and initially tries to reject it. Season finale: the battle between Rand and Ba'alzamon at Falme and the destruction of the Seanchan expeditionary force by the Heroes of the Horn of Valere.

Season 2: The Dragon Reborn and The Shadow Rising
This season sees Rand investigate the truth of his background and what he is fated to do. He decides to seize the reigns and take control of his own destiny and recruit his own allies. Season finale: Rand uniting the Aiel clans at Alcair Dal.

Season 3: The Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos
The turning-point of the series as Rand (and, to a lesser extent, his friends) become famous and major players in the affairs of governments as the continent falls into warfare and chaos. Season finale: the Battle of Dumai's Wells, naturally.

Season 4: A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers and Winter's Heart
Rand consolidates his gains and alliances, confronts the resurgent Seanchan and, ultimately, challenges the Dark Ones taint on saidin. Season finale: the Cleansing.

Season 5: Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm
Rand's journey into the heart of darkness and, ultimately, out of the other side. Season finale: Rand's epiphany atop Dragonmount and Egwene reunifying the Aes Sedai in the face of the Seanchan threat.

Season 6: Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light
Rand finally confronts the Dark One. Season/series finale: the Last Battle.

Of course, if the first two or three seasons are successful it might be possible to extend the series to seven seasons and cover two books per season, which would be easier in many ways. However, the slowing of the pace in the latter books as the story expands to cover ever more storylines and minor characters and the moving away of the focus from Rand and the other core characters is something that I feel on TV should be avoided. Post-Dumai's Wells, I also feel the story should start accelerating and moving decisively towards the ending.

With this structure, it should be possible to get the entire story of The Wheel of Time done in six years and 70-80 episodes. The majority of storylines and characters from the books would appear on-screen and the adaptation would be relatively faithful, and certainly far moreso than in a series of film adaptations.

Next time: the challenges of showing the One Power, Trollocs, Ogier and massive armies on a TV budget.


Part 4: Practicalities
First published: 2 June 2013

In the first three parts of this article series, I argued that the current plans by Red Eagle Entertainment and Universal to turn The Wheel of Time into a series of movies were impractical and unrealistic, and that adapting the books into an ongoing television series was more feasible. This especially makes more sense in the wake of the success of fantasy TV projects such as Sky's Discworld TV movies, the BBC's recently-concluded Merlin and of course HBO's Game of Thrones. I concluded that getting the series made by one of the three big remaining cable channels (Starz, AMC or Showtime) was essential to give the project the right combination of high production values and a decent amount of time to adapt the complex storyline before going on to address the issue of how you structure the series from a top-down approach. In this part I address several major technical and practical issues standing in the way of adapting the books to television.

Sets and Locations
If there is one major cost saving that TV shows have over movies, it's sets. A film with a budget in the tens of millions of dollars can afford to construct a specific set for each and every scene, and use a different location in every other shot. TV shows spread their costs more widely by the use of regular, recurring sets. Think of the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek, the throne room in Game of Thrones or the school library in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can spend a fair bit of money on an impressive set and then spread that cost over dozens of episodes.

With Wheel of Time, there is one rather huge problem: there is no single standing set that could be constructed and re-used a lot in the first season (if you recall, in the hypothetical plan we are discussing the first season would adapt the first two books, The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt). The first two books are constantly on the move, taking the characters from the Two Rivers to Baerlon to Shadar Logoth to Whitebridge to Caemlyn to Shienar, and thence to Tar Valon, Cairhien and Falme. Later in the series we would get standing sets and regularly-appearing locations, such as the Royal Palace in Caemlyn and the White Tower in Tar Valon (which would debut in the first season, but would not be revisited until later), but it's a while before such places recur regularly.

This is fairly headache-inducing, although compensated for to some extent by how much of the first two books takes place outdoors. This brings its own headaches in terms of the expense and practical issues of location filming (dealing with the weather and so on), but at least is better than having to build dozens and dozens of different sets and then discard them. A surprising number of locations in the first two books are in fact pubs of different description (the Winespring Inn in Emond's Field, the Queen's Blessing, the inn in Cairhien that Rand, Hurin and Loial stay in etc). A standing 'pub set' could be built, possibly in modules, with walls and partitions that can be switched around. Combined with redressing and the use of different camera angles, this can turn one set into several different locations. The same principal can be applied to shops, houses and even palaces (the Royal Palace of Caemlyn could pull double-duty as Fal Dara, for example, if you dropped in a few partitions and redressed things).

For location filming, Wheel of Time does have some problems with how much of it is set in large cities (especially later on, when scenes unfold near-simultaneously in Caemlyn, Cairhien and Ebou Dar). Caemlyn, for example, would likely have to be a real medieval-looking city, possibly in Europe, just as both Mdina in Malta and Dubrovnik in Croatia have stood in for King's Landing on Game of Thrones. Given the weird and otherwordly nature of Shadar Logoth, on the other hand, it might be possible to get away with realising that city through small set-pieces and CGI backdrops (CGI is of course a powerful and useful tool but we are not at the stage yet where full CGI sets and locations are believable or affordable on such a scale).

As for where the series should be filmed, there are quite a few options. Eastern Europe is both affordable and would have the right look for most of the main continent. The Republic of Ireland (probably not Northern Ireland, since a lot of the more interesting locations have already been used by GoT) would also be an attractive option. Morocco or the American West (heavily CGI-enhanced) could also be viable options for the Aiel Waste.

Costumes
Costuming is probably the least-challenging aspect of the production, thanks to both Robert Jordan's clear descriptions in the books and the availability of costumes and costumer designers familiar with the appropriate period.

"Awesome. I want 100,000 of them for the next shot."

Prosthetics
Wheel of Time features a large number of non-human creatures, including the friendly Ogier and the hostile Shadowspawn: Trollocs, Myrddraal, Draghkar and so on. Some of these creatures appear infrequently enough that they can be rendered in CGI: the Green Man immediately comes to mind. Draghkar and Darkhounds also appear infrequently enough that this should be viable. Trollocs and Ogier are more difficult to achieve. Loial is a fairly major character with a lot of screentime. Rendering him in CGI would require a Gollum-level performance and technology to achieve satisfactorily, neither of which may be available on a TV budget and time schedule. On the other hand, prosthetics/animatronics large enough to depict the Ogier as described in the books may be stiff and unconvincing. This is something that would require screentesting to find the best solution.

It should be possible to depict Trollocs by just using large extras with prosthetics. A mix-and-match of prosthetics could be made available to blend the different animal parts together to make each Trolloc unique (or as unique as possible), rather like how the creatures themselves are created in the books. CGI would be used for scenes with large numbers of Trollocs (which is most of them) to render more of them in the background.

"More lightning bolts!"

"Not too many, they cost $10,000 a time!"

The One Power
The One Power is one of the most detailed magic systems ever created, with a lot of complex rules on how it works, how it's detected and what the different types of the Power can do. Depicting the One Power on screen risks looking cheesy - people sticking their hands out and firebolts roaring off - and depicting people glowing when they embrace the Source could be confusing (as only those able to use the Power can sense it when others are using it).

The best way to handle this is as it is in the books, with 'our' characters initially unable to see or sense the Power itself, only its effects (i.e. someone pointing and the ground exploding or mist appearing). As our core characters become more acquainted with the Power, then we can start to see POV shots from them, showing the glow of the Power (I'm thinking a subtle haloing effect rather than people blazing with the light of a thousand suns). We'll only see this if we have a POV character in the scene who can sense the Power, otherwise they'll just see the effects.

A related issue is how to handle the issue of Aes Sedai ageing. As book-readers know, Aes Sedai gain an 'ageless' appearance as they get older, so that it becomes impossible to tell whether a woman is in her 20s or 40s (and that appearance may be only a reflection of their true age, as Aes Sedai can live for several centuries). Such an effect would be prohibitively expensive to achieve with CGI - 'de-aging' Moiraine alone in her every appearance in the series would cost a fortune, not to mention the problem being exasperated when a dozen Aes Sedai appear in the same scene - so this would have to be a practical make-up effect. If unconvincing or too odd-looking, this may have to be an element from the books that is dropped or perhaps changed to something less notable.

There are obviously a lot more complexities and practicalities that would have to be addressed to make these books into a TV show, but these were a few thoughts on how you'd achieve some basic questions.

This may be the last entry in this blog series, though I may do one more focused on how you'd write and structure the first episode, to put some of these ideas into practice.

WHEEL OF TIME TV series officially in development

The Robert Jordan Estate has confirmed that a Wheel of Time television series is in development with a major studio.

A more detailed announcement is to follow, but the Jordan Estate has confirmed that protracted legal disputes between themselves and Red Eagle Entertainment, who previously held the TV and film rights, have been resolved, clearing the way for a television series.

The timeline of previous events is as follows:

• 1990: Publication of the first Wheel of Time novel, The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan.
• 2000: NBC options the Wheel of Time as a network TV show, but drops the option after the people developing the series depart the company.
• Early 2000s: A Japanese anime company proposes an edited version of the story which adapts only the first three books into an animated series and concludes the story there. Robert Jordan declines.
• 2004: Robert Jordan sells the film, TV, comic book and video game rights to Red Eagle Entertainment, a rights-holding company, for $600,000.
• 2007: Robert Jordan passes away from cardiac amyloidosis. Brandon Sanderson agrees to complete the novel series, working from Robert Jordan's notes.
• 2008: Universal options the movie rights to The Wheel of Time from Red Eagle for "a seven-figure sum" and a film script for The Eye of the World is developed.
• 2013: The final Wheel of Time novel, A Memory of Light, is published. Around this time Universal drops its film option.
• 2014: Sony Television develops an interest in developing a television series based on The Wheel of Time. No option is purchased, but they hold meetings with Red Eagle and with the Robert Jordan Estate.
• January 2015: The media rights are due to revert to the Robert Jordan Estate (aka the Bandersnatch Group). Red Eagle self-produce a 22-minute test film starring Billy Zane as Ishamael and air it as a paid-for infomercial on FX, claiming this allows them to retain the TV rights. The Jordan Estate disagrees and requests legal clarification of the situation. Red Eagle count-sues for defamation.
• August 2015: Red Eagle withdraws its counter-suit.

At the time Red Eagle withdrew its suit, there was speculation that this was part of a legal manoeuvre which would allow Red Eagle to retain a production credit on the project as it went forward. The full details should be made clearer in the coming days and weeks.

The question now is who has won the rights and where will the show end up being broadcast? I addressed this in my "Wheel of Television" blog series a few years ago (I may reprint and update in the coming weeks in light of this news), but we know that Sony were very interested in the project before the legal storm erupted. Assuming they retain that interest, they have to be the firm favourites to have won the rights. It is very likely that one of the major US cable channels would also be in the running, most likely AMC as they have the financial firepower, the timespan allotment (the 16-episode seasons they are giving - unnecessarily in some cases - to The Walking Dead would be pretty essential for The Wheel of Time), the genre savviness and the pre-existing Sony relationship (from Breaking Bad). Starz, Showtime and FX would also be other potential candidates to be interested. HBO is pretty much out of the running due to their refusal to double-dip in the same genre at the same time, or even within a few years of their previous genre show ending. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that Amazon or Netflix has swooped in on the project as well.

The Wheel of Time spans 14 novels, a prequel, two companion volumes and a computer game. Worldwide sales of the series are approximately 90 million, with over 56 million sales in the United States alone and another 5 million sales in the United Kingdom. It is the biggest-selling work of epic fantasy series* since The Lord of the Rings, dwarfing the sales of all other works in its subgenre, including Shannara (which has just had a second season of its TV adaptation on MTV greenlit) and The Kingkiller Chronicle (which has both a film and TV series in development at Lionsgate). Only A Song of Ice and Fire (the book series that Game of Thrones is based on) is in any danger of overtaking Wheel of Time in sales any time soon. In terms of unoptioned fantasy series, it was by far the highest-profile.

More news as it comes in.

* If you don't count Harry Potter as epic fantasy, which some people do, but that's a separate argument.

Red Eagle de-escalates WHEEL OF TIME legal battle

Red Eagle Entertainment has withdrawn its curious attempt to sue Wheel of Time editor Harriet McDougall (also the widow of the series author Robert Jordan) for "slander" after she criticised their decision to self-produce an infomercial to try to hold onto the film and television rights to the novels.

Way back in 2004, shortly before he was diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis, Robert Jordan sold the film and television rights to The Wheel of Time to Red Eagle Entertainment for $600,000. There is some confusion over whether this was for the entire series (it seems rather low given the colossal popularity of the series at that time), or just for the first novel, The Eye of the World, by itself. In 2009, two years after Jordan's passing, Red Eagle signed a deal with Universal worth "seven figures", meaning that Red Eagle made a minimum of $400,000 on the deal. That option with Universal expired a couple of years later, after no film or TV project had gotten off the ground.

With Red Eagle having failed to get a project rolling, the TV and film rights would have reverted to the Robert Jordan Estate in February 2015. Red Eagle attempted forestall this by producing a near-zero-budget 25-minute infomercial based on the prologue to The Eye of the World, paying for it to be aired on FX. It appeared at least questionable if this fulfilled the terms of the deal and McDougall took legal steps to see what the position was, publicly declaring that the news came as a surprise to her. Red Eagle issued a legal threat of their own, stating that McDougall's comments were endangering negotiations with interested parties (specifically, Sony TV, the studio behind Breaking Bad, amongst others) that may have led to a Wheel of Time television series being made.

Red Eagle's decision to abandon this legal posturing a month ago was accompanied by confirmation that the Jordan Estate and Red Eagle were continuing to talk about the situation. It is possible that Red Eagle's move is a strategic one, de-escalating the situation in return for a slice of whatever film or TV deal is eventually made.

Full legal clarification of the situation needs to be made, but with the appetite for fantasy on TV never higher than right now and with The Wheel of Time inarguably the biggest name in the genre not attached to any development deal, it needs to be resolved quickly if the biggest epic fantasy series since Tolkien isn't to miss its best-ever shot at getting on the screen.

Red Eagle suing Robert Jordan's widow

Red Eagle Entertainment, producers of the widely-panned Wheel of Time "pilot" informercial, have decided to alienate the few remaining Wheel of Time fans who didn't despise them by suing Robert Jordan's widow for 'slander'. The text of their complaint in full:

Law360, San Diego (February 12, 2015, 8:08 PM ET) -- The producers of a TV adaptation of Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” fantasy book series accused the author’s widow of slander on Thursday in California federal court, alleging she publicly ridiculed the pilot that aired days before the producers’ rights were set to expire.

Red Eagle Entertainment LLC’s 30-minute pilot for the series aired on FXX in the early hours of Feb. 9, at 1:30 a.m. EST, and was quickly derided by fans and writers for its low-budget special effects, slow pacing and stilted acting. Red Eagle’s rights to the series would have expired on Feb. 11 if it hadn’t aired anything.

Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal released a statement Monday distancing herself from the pilot. She claimed that her company Bandersnatch Group Inc., which is Jordan’s successor in interest, had a deal with Universal Pictures to produce the show, not Red Eagle.

“I see no mention of Universal in the ‘pilot,’” she wrote. “Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan's estate, informed of this in any way. I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence.”

Red Eagle alleges that it granted some rights to Universal but they reverted back to Red Eagle last year. McDougal knew Universal was no longer involved because she and her lawyers were told about the rights change, according to the suit. Her statement was meant to disparage the show and cast doubt on Red Eagle’s legal ability to produce the pilot, the company alleged.

“Instead of confirming the rights for which she has been so richly compensated for, McDougal sought to harm the business prospects of [Red Eagle] by making statements she knew to be false,” Red Eagle said.

Red Eagle’s dealing with Jordan dates back to 2004, when a subsidiary paid Jordan $35,000 for a one-year option to buy movie and TV rights for the first of 15 books in the “Wheel of Time” series. The company eventually paid another $595,000 to extend the option and buy the rights, which would revert back to Bandersnatch if nothing came of the deal, according to the complaint.

The subsidiary, Manetheren LLC, signed a separate deal with Universal in 2009, giving it an interest in making films or a TV show based on the book, but the rights came back to Manetheren in February 2014 because Universal hadn’t started shooting by then, the complaint said.

McDougal was invited last year to a series of meetings between Manetheren, Sony Pictures Television and Radar Pictures LLC about a possible TV series and offered to serve as a consultant, according to the suit. Red Eagle claims McDougal never raised any concerns about Manetheren’s rights to go ahead with the show.

Manetheren further claims McDougal breached a 2008 deal over comic book rights, with both sides agreeing not to make any negative or contentious public statements about each other. And contrary to McDougal’s released statement, Manetheren was not required to get her approval before releasing the show, the producers said.

Representatives for the parties did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.

Red Eagle is represented by Jonathan D. Freund and Stephen P. Crump of Freund & Brackey LLP.

Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available.

The case is Red Eagle Entertainment LLC et al. v. Bandersnatch Group Inc. et al., case number 2:15-cv-01038, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

What Harriet McDougal actually said:

"This morning brought startling news. A “pilot” for a Wheel of Time series, the "pilot" being called Winter Dragon, had appeared at 1:30 in the morning, East Coast time, on FXX TV, a channel somewhere in the 700s (founded to concentrate on comedy, according to the Washington Post).

It was made without my knowledge or cooperation. I never saw the script. No one associated with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Rigney, was aware of this.

Bandersnatch has an existing contract with Universal Pictures that grants television rights to them until this Wednesday, February 11 – at which point these rights revert to Bandersnatch.

I see no mention of Universal in the “pilot”. Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan’s estate, informed of this in any way.

I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence."

Wow.

Some interesting points to extract from this:

Red Eagle's 2004 deal was for The Eye of the World alone, not the entire series. The later extension to $595,000 does not state if the entire series was included in the deal, especially interesting given that at the time only ten (of fifteen) novels were available. $600,000 seems a rather low price to pay for a series that by then had already chalked up three #1 New York Times bestsellers and had already sold over 40 million copies in the United States alone, which suggests that the rights may not have been for the full series (or Robert Jordan was feeling extremely generous). If Red Eagle only own the rights for the first book, or even the first few, then the chances of them getting the whole series made would seem to be very slim given that Bandersnatch are (especially after the events of this week) highly unlikely to ever sell them the remainder.

This revelation does confirm that Red Eagle made at least a $405,000 profit by re-selling the rights to Universal. They did this in 2008 for a reported "seven figure" deal. If that deal was for a few million, then Red Eagle's profit would have been substantially greater.

The news does also confirm that Sony Pictures were interested in taking on the project. Given that Sony's best-known recent TV project was Breaking Bad, which they exerted considerable influence over and reportedly protected from the kind of executive meddling at AMC that had caused problems on its other dramas, this at least shows that Red Eagle was dealing with the big leagues. There are no indications if Sony remain interested in the project.

WHEEL OF TIME gets a TV pilot out of nowhere

There was quite a big surprise last night for Wheel of Time fans watching the FXX channel in the United States. Out of nowhere, they were treated to a 30-minute TV "pilot" for a possible TV series based on the books, entitled Winter Dragon. Behold:

The "pilot" was apparently made on almost zero money in just a few days a couple of weeks ago.

"But how?" you may ask, possibly after only a moment's pause to reflect on the gloriously demented decision to cast Billy Zane as Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope.

Robert Jordan sold the film and TV rights to Wheel of Time back in the mid-2000s to Red Eagle Entertainment, a rights-handling company set up specifically to get the franchise expanded into TV, film comic books and video games. To say they failed spectacularly is an understatement. The Wheel of Time comic book was delayed multiple times and left incomplete. Red Eagle tried to crowdfund a mobile Wheel of Time game but asked for an obscene amount of money and then failed to publicise it anywhere, resulting in an unmitigated disaster. Red Eagle then won back some respect by commissioning Obsidian Entertainment, one of the best video games companies in the business, to work on a single-player RPG. However, they then failed to produce any money to fund the game. They somehow managed to sign a deal with Electronic Arts in which EA agreed to release the game but not fund it, one of the most inexplicably baffling failures of corporate dealing I've ever encountered.

Of course, the real money was in a film/TV adaptation. Red Eagle's initial attempts to produce a film script based on The Eye of the World were not successful, with a few people who managed to read the script declaring it unbelievably awful. With the company running out of money, Red Eagle re-sold the film and TV rights to Universal Pictures in 2008 in return for Red Eagle retaining a production credit.

Those rights were not forever, and on Wednesday 11 February 2015 (that's this Wednesday, people) the rights would have reverted to the Bandersnatch Group, aka the Jordan Estate, overseen by Robert Jordan's widow Harriet McDougal. During the last few months of his life Robert Jordan had become very irritated with Red Eagle's handling of the Wheel of Time project and one of his very last blog posts was spent castigating them. Fan appreciation for Red Eagle's efforts cooled noticeably at that point. At Worldcon this past August, I moderated a Wheel of Time convention panel with Harriet in attendance and she explained that a number of other Hollywood studios were very interested in the property. With Game of Thrones a huge hit, other networks were looking for a fantasy project and as the biggest-selling post-Tolkien epic fantasy series, WoT was clearly the #1 desired property. With less-successful works like Shannara and The Kingkiller Chronicle getting optioned, it's very likely that WoT would be snatched up by another (probably far more competent) company in short order.

This "pilot" appears to have been made specifically to forestall such a move. With this "pilot" made, Red Eagle (Universal's involvement is highly unclear at the moment) may try to argue that they have succeeded in getting the series made and thus can retain the film rights so they can, er, sit on them for a few more years and prevent a series getting made by actually competent personnel. That sound you can hear right now is that of several hundred lawyers reaching for their pencil sharpeners.

Harriet McDougal's response to all of this:

"This morning brought startling news. A “pilot” for a Wheel of Time series, the "pilot" being called Winter Dragon, had appeared at 1:30 in the morning, East Coast time, on FXX TV, a channel somewhere in the 700s (founded to concentrate on comedy, according to the Washington Post).

It was made without my knowledge or cooperation. I never saw the script. No one associated with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Rigney, was aware of this.

Bandersnatch has an existing contract with Universal Pictures that grants television rights to them until this Wednesday, February 11 – at which point these rights revert to Bandersnatch.

I see no mention of Universal in the “pilot”. Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan’s estate, informed of this in any way.

I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence."

More news as I get it.

Update: The director of the "pilot", Seda James, passed away just a few days ago. Condolences to his friends and family.

Update #2: Red Eagle have commented on the "pilot", confirming that they indeed made it to avoid losing the screen rights. They also confirm that they are pushing ahead with a plan to make a big-budget TV show, apparently because Game of Thrones is a big hit. No further word is given on if a reputable network is interested, or how they may proceed without known producers or writers on board.

Obsidian drawing a line under THE WHEEL OF TIME game project

Obsidian Entertainment have mentioned the current status of The Wheel of Time RPG in an interview with CVG.

To recap: four years ago Obsidian signed a deal with Red Eagle (the WoT media rights-holders) to make a computer roleplaying game based on The Wheel of Time. Obsidian are probably the strongest CRPG company in the business when it comes to narrative and characterisation, so this was a major coup. Unfortunately, Red Eagle were unable to find the necessary funding for the game. Whilst Obsidian as recently as a few months ago were saying they'd still be up for making the game if the money came through, this new statement suggests they are drawing a line under the project.

Has there been any movement on the Wheel of Time license?

What happened there is that there is a company called Red Eagle, and they have licensed some of the Wheel of Time stuff. I think they're working on a movie, they do comic books, and they also have the game rights. So they talked to us four or five years ago and we put an agreement together to say that, if the funding comes through, we have an agreement to make the game with them.

Unfortunately for them, they were never able to acquire the funding. So all the agreements kind of went away. So there's really no connection any more between us and Red Eagle as it relates to the Wheel of Time stuff. But I think Brandon Sanderson is an awesome author, the guy who took over for [late Wheel of Time author] Robert Jordan. I read all his stuff and it's super cool.

Sad news, as an Obsidian-made Wheel of Time game would likely be very good. However, I've also heard on the grapevine that Red Eagle's WoT media rights may actually be close to reverting to the Jordan Estate. If this is so, then hopefully we can see more WoT projects getting off the ground in the future once other people are involved. Whether this involves the movie and TV rights, which Red Eagle licensed onwards to Universal, remains unclear.

Will Obsidian and Red Eagle put a WHEEL OF TIME RPG on Kickstarter?

Yesterday, Rock Paper Shotgun interviewed the guys at Obsidian Entertainment about their upcoming plans. Their latest big-budget game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, is due to launch in April 2014 and their Kickstarted, overhead RPG Pillars of Eternity should follow soon after. Obsidian are already looking at ideas for a new Kickstarter project.

They talk at length about ideas for a much more open-world style of game using the Unity Engine (which they are using for Pillars of Eternity), but they also drop hints to what the next Kickstarter should be. One of the ideas they are actively discussing is a licensed game as part of a pre-existing franchise. This, to me, hints that they might be talking about their long-delayed Wheel of Time RPG.

Backing up, about three years ago Obsidian signed a development deal with Red Eagle, the rights-holding company which controls the rights for Wheel of Time video games. This deal was to make a single-player RPG set in the Wheel of Time universe and world. Obsidian seemed excited by what they could do with the game, and fan response was positive, especially when it was revealed that Obsidian's best-known writer, Chris Avellone (the creative force behind Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights II: Mask of the Betrayer and Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues, several of the greatest RPGs ever made), would be working on the project.

However, nothing has happened with the idea since. Red Eagle was in charge of securing the funding for the game, and failed to do so. Electronic Arts signed a speculative distribution agreement for the game, but chose not to fund and formally publish it. With Triple-A RPG budgets heading towards $100 million (Skyrim, for example, cost $80 million and the Mass Effect trilogy not far off that per game), Red Eagle proved unable to come up with the cash themselves.

Last year, both Red Eagle and Obsidian launched Kickstarters. Red Eagle launched one to make a Wheel of Time casual strategy game for tablets and smartphones, Banner of the Rising Sun. They asked for $450,000 and raised $3,000, a hugely disappointing failure. Obsidian launched one to make an isometric, 'old-skool' RPG with impressive graphics but a much tighter focus on story and character. They asked for $1.1 million and instead raised over $4.1 million, an absolutely massive success.

With both Red Eagle and Obsidian willing to use Kickstarter to achieve their goals, it makes sense that they might consider joining forces to do the same for a Wheel of Time game. The viability of this depends on the deal with EA. If this has expired, there's nothing stopping them doing this. However, if EA retain the distribution rights the project will likely not be viable: Kickstarter is for games that otherwise wouldn't get off the ground, and the involvement of a massive company like EA would be toxic for any such campaign. Provided there are no obstacles, the combination of Obsidian's Kickstarter and game-making experience and Red Eagle's Wheel of Time licence could be highly appealing.

Obsidian will announce what their next project is in the spring, so we have a few months to find out if this is the direction they are going to go in.

Red Eagle fail (again) to make a WHEEL OF TIME game

More than two years ago, it was reported that Red Eagle had signed a deal with Obsidian Entertainment to make a Wheel of Time computer roleplaying game for release on PC and console platforms. Chris Avellone, the well-respected creator of Planescape: Torment and a key writer on games like Fallout 2, New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Icewind Dale and the forthcoming Wasteland 2 and Project: Eternity, was reported to be working on the initial ideas for the game. Fans and even gamers who had never heard of Wheel of Time were intrigued.

Then nothing. Obsidian moved onto several projects. There was excitement when they reported they were working on a major franchise tie-in game, but this turned out to be a South Park title (due out in spring 2013). More recent reports emerged explaining what had happened: Red Eagle's responsibility had been to find a publisher to fund development of the game. Despite signing a distribution agreement with Electronic Arts in 2009, they were unable to procure funding for the game itself. The last (unofficial) word from the Obsidian camp was that they are not working on the game now, and do not expect to be working on it any time soon.

Then, in a move so low-key that barely any Wheel of Time fan sites even mentioned it, Red Eagle announced they were partnering with Jet Set Games to make at least two WoT games for mobile devices such as phones and tablets. Since almost no-one gives a toss about mobile gaming, the lack of any interest whatsoever was unsurprising. Red Eagle then made the curious decision to put the first game, Banner of the Rising Sun, on Kickstarter, expecting Wheel of Time fans to flock to support the game. Unsurprisingly, they did not. After asking for $450,000 (for a mobile game, remember), Red Eagle had to withdraw the campaign after less than $3,000 was pledged (an unmitigated disaster, in Kickstarter terms).

There has been a sense that Red Eagle's expectations for their WoT projects have been 'unrealistic' (such as their continued, futile insistence on a film over a TV series adaptation), but this situation takes it to a whole new level. Mobile games should never cost $450,000 to produce, not unless it's a tie-in with a Mass Effect or Halo game or something (and even then that's a stretch). For their Kickstarter Obsidian asked for $1.1 million to make a massive, proper PC RPG taking tens of hours to complete and featuring hundreds of thousands of words of writing. Half that for a casual game to play whilst bored on the train is sheer lunacy. The fact alone that Red Eagle were also unable to raise funding for a proper game based on a series that has outsold (overall and - just - per-volume) A Song of Ice and Fire at a time when epic fantay is on fire is perplexing, but then following it up with a gambit that was never in a million years going to pay off is something that moves us into the realm of the truly baffling.

WHEEL OF TIME RPG on hold at Obsidian?

Just over two years ago, Obsidian Entertainment announced they were partnering with Red Eagle to bring a new Wheel of Time computer game to the masses. This new game, unlike the ill-conceived first-person shooter released in 1999, would be a roleplaying game, likely set earlier in the WoT timeline than the novels.

Obsidian and Red Eagle promptly went into radio silence on the project. Last year I assembled a post based collecting together information from Tweets and interviews. Unfortunately, it appears a lot of the information I found was actually based around their then-unannounced South Park RPG (particularly the stuff about an exciting property they really wanted to work on and the need for 2D artists).

More recently, Obsidian have run into difficulties. A project they were developed under a codename, 'North Carolina', for Microsoft Games was cancelled unexpectedly. There was a theory that this was the Wheel of Time game (based on the admittedly rather thin notion that Robert Jordan lived in neighbouring South Carolina), but this seemed unlikely given the length of time since the original announcement and the fact that 'North Carolina' was going to be a launch project for the X-Box 720 (or whatever it ends up being called), whilst the WoT game seemed to be for this generation.

In this interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Obsidian writer Chris Avellone comments on the projects currently in development at Obsidian:

"A project..." - presumably North Carolina - "...was suddenly cancelled. It happens in the industry – in this case, it affected a large number of employees. We’re working hard at finding them jobs, and friends and developers in other companies also were great in coming forward and helping us out, so many thanks to them. We’re still working on two projects: South Park, and a team focused on pitching our second project that we put on hold for North Carolina."

 The second project could well be the WoT game, but if so that meant they don't have a publishing deal in place for it, and that means it is without a development budget and is thus on hold. However, since Obsidian were partnering Red Eagle on the WoT game, it may be more likely that Red Eagle (as the rights-holders) should be handling that side of things. If so the second project isn't the WoT game either, and thus it is either on hold or has been cancelled.

Hopefully we can get clarification on this point soon, but in any case, it sounds like it will still be some considerable time before a new WoT game hits our screens.

The new WHEEL OF TIME RPG: what do we know?

A new Wheel of Time computer game is currently in development as a joint project between Red Eagle Entertainment - the rights-holding company - and Obsidian, a well-respected computer RPG studio. Both companies have been pretty quiet about the game so far, but some interesting news has emerged in the last few weeks which may impact on it.

The box art from the existing Wheel of Time game, released in 1999.

Who's involved?
Red Eagle Entertainment bought movie, computer game and graphic novel adaptation rights based on The Wheel of Time novels from Robert Jordan before he passed away. They have been developing a film based on the first novel in the series, The Eye of the World, since 2007 with Universal Pictures. Despite repeated claims that the film is in active development, nothing substantive has been revealed about the film so far. Red Eagle were also involved in the shambolic adaptation of New Spring as a graphic novel, which took several years to be released in full.

Obsidian Entertainment are one of the most successful developers of modern computer RPGs. Most of their team was reconstituted from the ashes of Black Isle, which collapsed in the early 2000s. As Black Isle, they created the Fallout franchise, developing the first two games in the series. They then made Planescape: Torment, probably the finest CRPG ever made, followed by the entertaining Icewind Dale series of games. As Obsidian, they have made and released Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights II and its two expansions, Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas and several expansions and, most recently, Dungeon Siege III. The Wheel of Time game is currently their only announced title in development, though it's not uncommon for a company to have several unannounced titles in early stages of development at a time.


What do we know?
Red Eagle are developing two Wheel of Time games. The first is a single-player RPG, the second is an online multiplayer game. Obsidian and Red Eagle are working on the singler-player RPG at this time. The status of the online game is unknown, but given the expense of developing an MMORPG, may be on hold until either the other game or the film has come out and boosted the franchise's profile.

The single-player RPG has the simple working title Wheel of Time. According to Red Eagle, the game will not necessarily be based on the books or use the characters from the books, and may be set during an earlier time period (similar to the previous Wheel of Time game, a fast-paced first-persion shooter - er, channeller - released in 1999).


What's the timeline?
On 12 February 2010, Red Eagle issued a press release confirming they were working with Obsidian on the game. Obsidian simultaneously issued their own press release. Red Eagle haven't handed the whole project over to Obsidian, but are working on the story, design documents and some of the technical aspects of the game, whilst Obsidian are providing the bulk of the technical manpower, expertise and, of course, experience. Chris Avellone, the extremely well-respected writer of many of Black Isle and Obsidian's most iconic games, is apparently developing the script, which is excellent news.

"The Wheel of Time is one of the greatest and well-received fantasy series of all time. Games set in Robert Jordan's universe have the chance to deliver on the epic storylines and the complex characters that the series is known for - and this is one of Obsidian's strengths. It's a natural fit." - Chris Avellone, Chief Creative Officer of Obsidian Entertainment.

On 25 February 2011, Obsidian apparently confirmed that the game was in development, but only a small team had been working on it, presumably because the main game design teams had had to ship three full games in less than a year (Alpha Protocol, New Vegas and Dungeon Siege III). With those projects done, the way seems clear for Wheel of Time to head into full development mode, though Obsidian also teased a number of other projects they had unannounced.

"There is a property that we are working on, that we can't talk about yet. It's something we've been working on since the middle of last year, just with a small team, it's only been five or ten people. It's a license that you would go, well you gotta do it. It's not a license where it's, 'Ok, we'll take that and we can do something with it.' It's more like, well that's once in a lifetime." - Feargus Urquhart, head of Obsidian.

More recently, Obsidian have posted an advertisement looking for 2D character animators for their new, "highly stylised, high profile roleplaying game". Whilst some fans have immediately assumed this was for the Wheel of Time project, this isn't necessarily the case. As mentioned in the above interview, Obsidian have been lobbying Atari to make Icewind Dale III as a low-cost, low-risk project and it's possible that one way of doing this is to create a new 2D RPG based on the old Infinity Engine (monstrously upgraded to modern standards of course). So this may be a hint that that project is moving forward. On the other hand, even a modern 3D RPG (which Wheel of Time would likely have to be to be commercially viable) might still use 2D art assets in some fashion, which is what the recruitment drive could be about.


When are we likely to see it?
If the Wheel of Time game has just gone into full development mode, I suspect it'll be the very end of 2012 at the earliest, more likely some time the following year. However, we may get more news and screenshots much earlier than that. It depends on how things go.

Red Eagle team with Obsidian to make WHEEL OF TIME game

Red Eagle, the Wheel of Time rights-holding company, has announced it is partnering with Obsidian Entertainment to make the long-awaited new Wheel of Time computer game. Red Eagle has been developing a film project with Universal for the past two years with no real progress announced, so it sounds like the planned game will be set in a different time period to the books/movies with additional movie tie-in games released when that project finally starts moving again. Obsidian Entertainment are the modern incarnation of Black Isle. As Black Isle they created several of the most influential and critically-acclaimed computer roleplaying games of all time, including the original Fallout and Fallout 2, the Icewind Dale series and possibly the greatest single CRPG ever made, Planescape: Torment. They also partnered with BioWare to work on the classic Baldur's Gate series. As Obsidian they created the brilliantly-conceived but (under publisher pressure) incomplete and bugged Knights of the Old Republic II for LucasArts, and the better-received Neverwinter Nights II and its expansions. Obsidian are prepping to release their first original IP under their current name, Alpha Protocol and are also working on Fallout: New Vegas for release this autumn from Bethesda. This is excellent news. Obsidian have great form and should be able to deliver a great gaming experience in the Wheel of Time world. Interesting to see how this turns out.